


don't say the word if you don't want it done

by nextgreatadventure



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: 3x05 spoilers, F/F, general power play complicatedness, general unhealthy unbalanced relationship stuff, general vagueishness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-08 17:47:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8855023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nextgreatadventure/pseuds/nextgreatadventure
Summary: They have a routine, now.





	

**Author's Note:**

> for femslash kink meme 2016. the prompt was: how to get away with murder, annalise/bonnie, top!bonnie.
> 
> so... this… is what I could manage. goddamn was it difficult with these two, and it ended up turning into one of those sticky messes that cannot be untangled, and at some point you just have to throw up your hands and post it because it is impossible, but you tried!! you tried. anyway the point is: I fucking tried. idk what else to tell you. I hope it works.
> 
> takes place during some hand wavey time period, probably like post 3x05 but pre/divergent from 3x09, with the exception that here annalise already knows about bonnie and frank. title is from sleater kinney.

 

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

 

It is late in the afternoon on a Saturday and Bonnie is at her desk. There’s the steady sound of rain against the roof, against the glass windows, but inside, the cavernous house is quiet and grey and empty. 

The kids are gone, studying (Michaela) or getting laid (Laurel and Wes) or trying to get laid (Asher and Connor) and Frank, well - Frank is long gone, and Bonnie works her tired body endlessly, paperwork and phone calls and rifling through testimonies and alibis, to keep her mind from lingering on the fact of his absence for too long. 

“Bonnie.” Annalise’s voice makes Bonnie’s pen stop mid-scratch. She glances up and locks eyes with Annalise, wonders how long Annalise has been there, watching her from beyond the bannister.

“Do you need something?” Bonnie asks softly. Annalise has sequestered herself away upstairs since early last night. She hasn't had a drink in twelve days, hasn't slept in nearly two. Bonnie herself has been home only once in the past forty eight hours (she will not leave Annalise alone when she's like this).

“Come upstairs,” Annalise says. Her face is exhausted and drawn, black eyeliner worn mostly away and the ghost of a pale red lipstick, and it is still so, so beautiful, and she holds a hand out toward Bonnie even though Bonnie is still a room away. “Please.”

This last word is what makes Bonnie finally set down her pen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Upstairs, Bonnie shuts the bedroom door behind them. Locks it.

When Bonnie turns to look at Annalise, Annalise is already watching her again.

Annalise is wearing a soft heather shirt and a pair of satin pajama bottoms, and without a word Bonnie steps over and slips the shirt up over Annalise’s head, pushes the satin down her hips and thighs until she's stripped to her underwear (lace, expensive, like everything else about her).

Then, Bonnie lays a firm hand on Annalise’s warm bare chest and pushes her down into the mattress.

(They have a routine, now. Talking comes later. For now, it's eye contact, and simple, direct movements, and the restless rain outside.)

Bonnie untucks her own blouse, unbuttons it down, lets it fall to the floor. She unzips her skirt, steps out of her heels.

Annalise watches with dark, dark, eyes beneath long, long lashes, watches Bonnie unhook her bra, slip her underwear down her legs, and then move to straddle Annalise on the bed. 

Annalise’s hands come reflexively to either side of Bonnie’s thighs, but Bonnie immediately seizes them, puts them above Annalise’s head near the headboard, wrist to wrist.

“Don't,” Bonnie says, in a voice Annalise rarely hears directed at her (at the students, yes, at clients, but so very rarely at Annalise herself).

Annalise’s face is unreadable, staring up at Bonnie. She keeps her hands where Bonnie put them.

“Don't touch me until I let you,” Bonnie warns. 

Here, Annalise's eyes narrow almost imperceptibly, but Bonnie still sees it, even inside this room where the light has been made dark by the storm.

“You wanted this, Annalise,” Bonnie reminds her, and long, withering seconds tick by before Bonnie feels Annalise’s body relax beneath her again. 

There’s a crack and rumble of thunder, the first all afternoon, and the old windows rattle in their panes like loose bones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All Annalise has ever wanted (and needed) is to rest, to set down some of the weight that she carries like lead on muscle, like it is something that runs through her blood instead of something that has been forced upon her (or something she forces upon herself). Bonnie knows this. 

Bonnie knows that Annalise is desperate to just _stop_ , if only for a little while. She is desperate to quit leading and to _follow_ , if only once. But Annalise doesn’t know how to do any of this, doesn’t know how to ask for it. She never has.

Bonnie knows now what Annalise needs from these moments between them, and it is better that she get it in the safety and privacy of her bedroom, with Bonnie, than in the courtroom in front of a dozen people who want to see her career and character destroyed. It is better that she break beneath Bonnie than over a bottle (or two, or three) of alcohol, or in front of her already nervous students, or clients.

It is better that Annalise trust Bonnie with this side of herself, the side that longs to surrender, because without Bonnie, Annalise would self-destruct in more ways than one.

 

 

(Two months ago, late one Thursday night, they had been fighting. It was the worst fight they'd had in awhile, the kind that opened up old wounds and betrayals, left them stinging and burning beneath their hands, the kind of fight where words were hurled like glass shards and curved blades aimed for the jugular. Bonnie had been shouting at Annalise relentlessly, and Annalise had simply snapped - without thinking, without warning, she had turned physical, had shoved Bonnie up against the kitchen sink. Bonnie surprised them both by reacting immediately, by wrenching herself away and pinning both of Annalise’s hands to the ledge of the counter instead. It hadn’t started out sexual, not really, but Annalise’s face betrayed her - she had already made a small noise of release by the time Bonnie’s eyes flashed quickly from anger to confusion, and then from confusion to revelation. “You don’t want me to let go, do you?” she’d asked, and Annalise had bared her teeth slightly, but in the end she gave a quick, pained shake of the head, and Bonnie had tightened her grip. The next few minutes passed by slowly in the silent kitchen, Annalise struggling like a wild pinned animal, Bonnie using all her strength to hold Annalise still.

The next day Annalise had light, black bruises on her wrists that she was covering up with bulky bracelets, and Bonnie’s whole body was sore. Alone in the office Annalise had said, “If I wanted you to do that again, do you think you could manage it?” Like it was an errand for a client. Like it was something she’d done a million times before. Bonnie had breathed out and nodded, numbly, because she’d never known how to say no to Annalise when Annalise asked something of her. Because she never _wanted_ to say no to Annalise. Because the memory of controlling Annalise’s body with her own messed with her mind like some kind of drug, made something hotter than arousal flare low and dangerous in her belly.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bonnie has known what will have Annalise clenching and unclenching her fists in the bedsheets since long before they actually started sleeping together (if that's what they can call this). It isn't easy - nothing about Annalise is ever easy - but like their law practice, Bonnie has proven to be very good at it. She is thorough, and patient, and ruthless when needed. She knows what to say, and when to withhold (Annalise has taught her well in this regard). Sometimes, Bonnie thinks she knows Annalise better than she knows herself.

She knows that today, right now, Annalise is more pliable, more receptive than usual. Annalise is exhausted, reluctantly needy, and when Bonnie crawls down her body to peel away that expensive underwear, when she drops it like a rag to the floor and hooks Annalise’s long leg over her shoulder, she can already tell that Annalise is wet enough (she still draws her tongue slowly between Annalise’s thighs - one long and unrelenting motion, because it makes Annalise moan in a way that shakes Bonnie to the core).

“I like the way you taste,” Bonnie murmurs, crawling back up to pin Annalise down again.

Annalise has her eyes shut tight and her chest is seesawing up and down, up and down. 

Bonnie cups both of Annalise's breasts in both her hands, leans down to suck a taut nipple into her mouth, uses the heel of her hand to press Annalise’s hips back down into the mattress when she arches up.

“Lie still,” Bonnie murmurs, and when Annalise doesn't listen, she says more firmly (as if to a petulant child): “Lie. Still, Annalise.”

The long, cool breath that Annalise releases skitters across Bonnie’s naked skin, coaxes up a wildfire of goosebumps everywhere not already touched by the chill of the room. Once Annalise has settled again, Bonnie presses the fingers of one hand to Annalise’s lips, shifts, puts her weight into her thighs to balance so that she can use her other hand to reach down between them.

“Open your mouth.”

Annalise does, slowly, and Bonnie pushes her fingers inside. Annalise’s mouth is wet and warm around her right hand, and her cunt is wet and warm around her left, and it's Bonnie who moans, now - cannot keep from closing her eyes and whimpering low in the back of her throat.

She holds Annalise down like this for a long, long time (Annalise presses her wrists together, her teeth and tongue slide gently against Bonnie's fingers, and she elongates her body, but she doesn't resist - she only works to endure it). When Bonnie finally withdraws her hands after what feels like a small eternity, slides them both away wet and aching, Annalise’s chest is still swelling, bursting, but she’s smiling slightly, too. Her lips are swollen and curved like a full moon, like they share some sort of secret.

“You like this, what I’m doing to you? What you do to me?” Bonnie’s voice wavers as her spine straightens, and then she's settling in against Annalise’s stomach, her own wetness spreading, smearing hot against Annalise’s skin. She breathes in, out, and says, “Touch me. Just once. I don't care where.”

Annalise’s arms arch up over her head and forward, and Bonnie leans down to give more options. Annalise chooses Bonnie’s neck, and jaw, and face, encircles them with warm hands (trembling slightly). The touch is intimate, even though it shouldn’t be - betraying that yes, Annalise needs her. Annalise needs Bonnie to stay sane, and Bonnie knows this, receives that knowledge all over again with just Annalise’s hands on her skin.

(Not for the first time, Bonnie thinks that Annalise needing her is not necessarily a good thing for either of them.)

Bonnie lets Annalise roam for long, long moments, and she doesn't look away, doesn't break eye contact. 

“That's enough,” she whispers eventually, but the demand has gone from her voice. Still, Annalise lifts her hands away when Bonnie says so, moves them to either side of herself on the mattress, where they tighten into loose fists.

“If I let you, Annalise,” Bonnie says next, even and controlled, “would you rather fuck me with your hands, or your mouth?”

Annalise looks up at her, while the muted _drip, drip, drip_ of the water slides off the rain gutters outside. Bonnie is still on top of Annalise, is still directing this encounter, but when Annalise opens her mouth, takes in a quiet breath, and draws her tongue down the middle of her own bottom lip, Bonnie feels suddenly winded. She has to put a hand to the mattress, just to steady herself. Has to close her eyes.

“I don’t give a damn,” Annalise murmurs, and her voice sounds far away. “Just let me. Please,” she adds, to keep up the illusion.

Sometimes (most of the time), Annalise seems more like a legend than a woman. Sometimes Bonnie thinks that Annalise, like this, will be too much for her and she won't be able to bear it. She worries that she won’t be able to do what Annalise needs her to do, that this will finally be the moment (another moment) where she fails and Annalise will look at her with that familiar shade of disappointment and she won’t be able to live with herself anymore. With anyone else, it wouldn't matter. With anyone else, Bonnie's iciness would come naturally, and she could dominate without lifting a finger. With Annalise, everything is different. With Annalise, Bonnie doubts. 

But then she’ll actually touch Annalise, all smooth soft brown skin and curves, so many long, unending curves, and Annalise is just a woman beneath her, utterly weary and wounded, gorgeous, hardened, the sort of tragic that stains a soul like the blackest ink. And Bonnie remembers all over again that she would, and can, and will, do anything for her. (She doesn't linger too long on the _must_ part, the way Annalise's requests often feel mandatory.)

“Why should I let you?” Bonnie asks, but she is already inching closer. Bonnie can count on one hand the number of times over the past two months that she had not allowed Annalise fuck her, but it was enough to make Annalise uncertain each new time. It was enough to make them both crave it more.

“Because nobody can make you feel the way I do,” Annalise promises, and it is true. Annalise has always made Bonnie feel things that nobody else has been able to make her feel. They aren’t happy, the things she feels when she’s with Annalise. Whether she’s sitting quietly outside Annalise’s office working with just the knowledge that Annalise is on the other side of the wall, or whether it’s Annalise’s thumb on her clit and three of her fingers inside of her, it makes no difference. To Bonnie, it always feels the same. Like a brand.

Bonnie isn’t happy, but she feels alive because of Annalise, and that’s almost the same thing.

So after a moment of consideration, she takes in a shuddering breath and moves to align herself with Annalise’s mouth, braces one arm against the headboard and cups the back of Annalise’s head with her palm. Annalise is ready, winds her arms beneath Bonnie’s thighs, uses the leverage to push her tongue in deep, and deeper still, and Bonnie cries out softly as all her thoughts seize, shatter, and then tumble away.

 

 

After, when Bonnie can finally turn her attention back onto Annalise like she's supposed to (like she wants to), she's usually wound so tightly that unraveling her is a kind of exquisite torture for them both. Annalise still wants so badly to relinquish control, but it doesn't (has never) come easily to her. Sometimes, it takes hours, but Bonnie has time - to Annalise, Bonnie has already given years of her life, and will give many, many more. Sometimes it takes an entire evening of Bonnie making filthy, bruising demands, hours of pushing up against that resistance until finally, _finally_ , it gives. Other times all it takes is Bonnie’s weight on her hips, fingers in her mouth and teeth against her throat, and Annalise is done, unraveling without another thought. 

(Bonnie thinks about asking Annalise, but never actually asks, if it was like this with Sam, or Nate, or Eve. Bonnie is intensely curious but she thinks maybe, in the end, she doesn’t want to know. There are certain things that, once learned, cannot be unlearned, paths she can’t afford or bear to go down.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Tell me you trust me,” Bonnie whispers, much later, because this is suspended reality anyway, and she might as well play it for all it is worth.

“I trust you,” Annalise tells her. It has to be at least partially true, or they would never have ended up in this room, in this bed, with Bonnie on top of her, demanding things of her and doing things to her body that in any other context might have earned her a swift slap across the face.

“Do you love me?” 

It's not a trick question, not really, but Bonnie knows that in this suspended moment, Annalise will tell her exactly what she wants to hear. Annalise will tell Bonnie what she wants to hear, and Bonnie will tell Annalise what she wants to hear, and any number of these things might bend the truth, if they let it. 

“I love you, Bonnie,” Annalise says, in a voice that Bonnie will play over and over again in her mind after they're done here, when she's back home, alone and naked between the sheets of her own bed (she’s never sure whether she’ll end up hurting herself or pleasuring herself to the memory of Annalise - it’s always a surprise in the moment). 

And then, because she can, Bonnie asks, “What did you feel, when you realized that Frank and I had slept together?” She takes Annalise’s hands and guides them up to her own breasts, holds them there, her hands cupping Annalise’s. “Were you jealous?”

Annalise slides a still hard nipple between the V of her index and middle finger, tightens her hands beneath Bonnie’s until she moans. Bonnie is toeing a fine line here between truth and consequences, and instead of answering, Annalise remains ambiguous (Bonnie still feels that tension in her hands, though, the way her lips curl like she's biting something back). “Doesn't matter whether or not I was jealous,” she says.

Bonnie tips her head back slightly, closes her eyes. “Why not?” 

And here, Annalise surprises Bonnie by chuckling, low and breathy. “Why? Because you’re _mine_ , Bonnie.” Annalise elongates her name very slightly, almost as if she were being affectionate. “It doesn’t matter who you give your body to in the meantime.” (What she doesn’t say, what they both know, is that Annalise holds Bonnie’s heart and her mind, always. Her body is a rewarding addition, almost incidental.)

Bonnie's hands fall away now, but she lets Annalise keep touching her. She thinks Annalise must feel what this is doing to her, the way her body at once hums and lulls, the way it tunes itself to the sound of Annalise’s voice. The way her breath hitches and trips out of her mouth along with the words. “Did you think about him fucking me?” 

(In this moment, Bonnie cannot bring herself to feel the loathing that she knows will come to her later, having just sacrificed the one sacrosanct memory - her and Frank - that Annalise was never supposed to be able to touch.)

Two thumbnails catch against both of Bonnie’s nipples before they begin to slide down, pausing to tease, and as the pressure builds at the base of her spine again, Bonnie cannot help but think that it was worth it. “No. I thought about you fucking him,” Annalise says.

Annalise’s hands keep sliding, following curves, settling finally on Bonnie’s waist. She bends her thumb, drags its nail along the inner crease of Bonnie’s thigh.

The corner of Bonnie’s mouth curves up. “You always imagine me on top?”

The way Annalise looks up at her then is too much for Bonnie to take in all at once, too much to compartmentalize (like Annalise wants to swallow her whole, like she thinks that Bonnie can save her, too) but Bonnie still holds the gaze, doesn’t look away, doesn’t blink. Doesn't breathe.

Annalise starts to trail her hand lower. Bonnie knows that even if she wanted to, she wouldn’t be able to stand up, to move away from this, but she still reaches out to halt Annalise's movement.

“You aren’t in control of this, Annalise,” Bonnie reminds her. The voice she uses shakes only slightly. “Hands up.”

Another look passes over Annalise’s face, one that makes Bonnie bolder, one that makes her consider fucking Annalise then and there, makes her think about sliding two fingers back into her wet cunt and three into her warm mouth without preamble. But then Annalise puts her hands back above her head, and Bonnie blinks the fantasy away. 

(The desire still lingers, though, just like it has ever since that night in the kitchen two months ago. If Bonnie is honest with herself, it has lingered for far longer than that. The knowledge that for just these few hours, Annalise’s body and mind, and maybe, her heart, are entrusted to her makes Bonnie want to please Annalise in even more dark, desperate and consuming ways than she did before.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Annalise is trembling so badly beneath her that Bonnie feels it like the aftershocks of an earthquake. She’s gasping shuddering mouthfuls of air, as if she had been drowning, as if she has just broken the surface after years underwater. 

Bonnie’s body is shaking, too. She leans in to kiss Annalise’s cheek, dizzily breathes in her smell, the way her skin is flushed and damp and hot to the touch.

What Bonnie had just done will make it very difficult for her to look Annalise in the eye on Monday morning, but she will. She will. She always manages to, somehow.

When Annalise is breathing normally again, Bonnie carefully moves off of her, and begins to dress. Her muscles feel like lead, like they can no longer hold the weight of her small body upright like they should, but Bonnie ignores this, ignores the way her fingers and thighs tremble and waver as she buttons up her blouse.

She carries her heels with her to the door and stops when her hand is on the doorknob, just as Annalise’s voice carries quietly to her ears.

“Bonnie,” she says. “Thank you.”

Bonnie does not turn to look at Annalise. She keeps her eyes down. Her throat feels unbearably tight. She wants to go back to the bed, to kneel and trace her fingers along the curve of Annalise’s neck, collarbones, shoulders, and to kiss her - kiss her so deeply that they both forget who they are, what they’ve done, the things that have been done to them. She wants to kiss Annalise because that’s one thing they don’t really ever do. She wants to wrap Annalise up in her arms and hold her while she sleeps. Wants to tend to the bruises she made. But Bonnie doesn’t do any of these things, because the illusion that what she wants matters was done the moment her feet hit that hardwood floor.

Instead, she maneuvers her words around a sob, a sob she stifles, and then suffocates, until her voice is clear and even once more. “You know I’d do anything for you, Annalise. Get some rest.” 

And then Bonnie is slipping through the doorway, out onto the landing and down the stairs, so that Annalise doesn’t see the way that she starts to cave in on herself. Bonnie thinks Annalise knows anyway, thinks that Annalise can still tell how much this wrecks her. Bonnie wants to spare them both, and so she always leaves without letting Annalise see her face, without letting herself see Annalise’s face, because this way maybe they’re both still safe in the delusion that what they're doing is okay, if only for a little while longer.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
